[ The sight of Hunter turning so red, right up to his ears, turns Dylan's smile into a wide grin. For some reason, he really wants to try and make Hunter do that as much as possible.

He turns back to food prep when Hunter does, listening as he speaks. It looks like his mood's lifted — mission accomplished! No one's going into Dylan's birthday bummed if he has anything to say about it.

Dylan looks over at Hunter as he cuts off he word "uncle" — Clearly there's a story there, one that Dylan guesses might be... a little familiar? Hunter's talk of his... not-Uncle hopping worlds and the Human Appreciation Club doesn't quite fit. And with Hunter's earlier talk of not liking his birthday, well... he's probably had it way worse.

Besides, Hunter doesn't need to hear about the soap opera that was Dylan's life for that whole year or so. ]

It's weird to think of them as human rituals, but... yeah, I guess that is what they are.

You're gonna be learning about a lot of them. Halloween's coming up, then Thanksgiving and Christmas. [ He pauses. ] Or... any number of winter holidays. There's a few to choose from.

[ He needs to get more into the habit of saying Happy Holidays, if for no other reason than he knows his ultra-religious grandpa would lose his goddamn mind if he ever heard Dylan default to it. And even if he'll never be here to see it, it's cathartic to be defiant to him anyway. ]

Anway, this is actually a pretty holiday-dense time of year. I think you're gonna have a good time over the next few months.

[ He pauses, then turns to look at Hunter again. ]

Hey, can you tell me about some of your cultural rituals?